Ipsos i-Say Review: Is it a Scam or Legit?

Ipsos i-Say is the survey site arm of Ipsos, one of the largest market research companies in the world. The Ipsos Group is headquartered in Paris, France and was founded in 1975 by Didier Truchot. They have offices in 88 countries with over 16,000 employees and are publicly traded. They're legitimate.

If you remember back to the most recent Presidential election, Ipsos was often cited along with Reuters (they have a partnership) whenever political surveys were mentioned. Even today, the approval and disapproval ratings are Reuters/Ipsos polls. Reuters comes up with the questions and methodology, Ipsos conducts the polling.

What is Ipsos i-Say?

Ipsos iSay is the survey site and it's open to 18+ residents of the United States and Canada. If you live elsewhere, you'll be redirect to a local Ipsos iSay survey site. You can join it completely for free (never pay to join a survey site or survey panel, they should always be paying you!) and immediately start taking surveys.

The sign-up process takes mere minutes, with a few demographic and targeting questions, because they like to get the pre-survey questions out of the way. They will ask your gender, date of birth, marital status, education, race, household makeup, etc. Afterwards, you need to click on a confirmation survey and you're off to the races.

The first survey is a pre-qualification one called the “Getting to know You Survey” – it's a very short interview. It's basically a survey that fills out your demographic information, like employment status, and level of interest in surveys. It's only about a dozen questions max and it's a way for them to understand the people who join. This helps them put you into the right panels.

How Ipsos i-Say Works

My Ipsos iSay Dashboard

Unlike other survey sites, which will give you points for downloading apps, watching videos, shopping, playing games, and other activities; Ipsos i-Say focuses solely on surveys. You'll get invites via email or you can look in the Dashboard for surveys that you qualify for.

There are surveys and “polls.” Surveys will start with qualifying questions and then move onto the survey itself. If you don't qualify, you still get 5 points. If you do, the points will be much higher since it will take longer.

There are also polls. The polls are not surveys and so you don't get points for answering them… but they are part of a bigger contest. When you finish a survey, you get to play Poll Predictor where you guess what percentage of people will answer Yes to the different polls. If you get it right, you get “chances,” which are entries into Ipsos i-Say's prize sweepstakes.

Pretty close!

Here's a recent one where I had to guess how many people answered yes to this question – “Do you smoke a cigarette before leaving home every day?” I put 18%, the real answer was 15%, I earned 15 chances and immediately allocated them to the $300 Amazon.com gift card drawing.

(some of these are really wacky… like “If a stranger knocked on your door and asked to use the toilet, would you let them? What percentage of American women answered “YES” ? — I guessed 11% and the real answer was 13%!)

In addition to earning points completing surveys, you get Ipsos iSay loyalty rewards. If you finish 5 surveys, you get a 25 point bonus. If you do another 5 (and thus hit 10), you'll earn another 50 bonus points. Finish 15 more (and thus hit 25), you'll get another 100 bonus points. This is in addition to what you earn for the survey itself.

Bonus point schedule:

5 surveys: 25 bonus loyalty points

10: 50 bonus loyalty points

25: 100 bonus loyalty points

50: 200 bonus loyalty points

75: 250 bonus loyalty points

100: 300 bonus loyalty points

125: 400 bonus loyalty points

150: 500 bonus loyalty points

200: 600 bonus loyalty points

They add up!

How Ipsos i-Say Points & Rewards Work

100 points on Ipsos iSay is worth $1. You trade the points in for gift cards for Amazon, Starbucks, Target, etc – the cards are delivered instantly. You can redeem i-Say points once you get to 500, which is much lower than other sites, and they don't expire as long as your account is active (you don't answer any surveys for 45 days).

You can also request a Paypal payment (slightly more expensive, 1530 points for $15) but that will take 3-4 weeks to process. You can also request a prepaid Visa card, $2000 points for $20, with no premium and that takes 4-8 weeks to get to you (it's sent by USPS).

You can always donate your points to various charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Nature Conservancy, etc. too.

Finally, you can cash in 250 iSay points for an entry into the prize sweepstakes.

Is Ipsos i-Say Worth It?

It will depend on you and how busy you are – the big challenge with any survey site is qualifying for surveys.

If you are lucky and happen to match a lot of them, then you could clean up. If you are unlucky and don't happen to match a lot of them, you'll get 5 points a lot. Some people find they qualify for a lot, others find it a struggle. This is something that I can't give any advice on, we're all different. I do know they have a lot of surveys, so it's not because the pickings are slim.

My best advice is to sign up, give it a run through and test try a few surveys to see how many you qualify for (for what it's worth, their time estimates on surveys is conservative… I rarely took that much time). Since the sign-up process is so quick, it's low risk.

As for how much money you can make, it will not get you rich. It's nice to get a few bucks every so often for answering iSay surveys, but this won't make you rich. I think anyone who promises wealth and riches from a survey website is delusional. 🙂

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About Jim Wang

Jim Wang is a thirty-something father of two who has been featured in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Entrepreneur, and Marketplace Money.

He can show you the philosophies, tools, strategies and methods he used to become financially independent and free to pursue what was important.

One of his favorite tools is Personal Capital, which enables him to manage his finances in just 15-minutes each month. They also offer financial planning, such as a Retirement Planning Tool that can tell you if you're on track to retire when you want. It's free.

He is also diversifying his investment portfolio by adding a little bit of real estate. But not rental homes, because he doesn't want a second job, it's diversified small investments in a mix of properties through RealtyShares (Fundrise if you're not an accredited investor). Worth a look and he's already made investments that have performed according to plan.

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